


living is the best revenge

by calerine



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF, Johnny's WEST, Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Crossdressing, Food, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4294635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>8UPPERS Arashi. It's been years since the orphanage. Now Aiba's got the flower shop he always wanted, but a baby left on their door step in the autumn sends the past nipping at Nino's heels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	living is the best revenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taykash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/gifts).



> Huge thanks to Hannah, and to Cheryl for holding my hand and correcting my silly spelling mistakes. 
> 
> There are footnotes littered around the story that will lead you to a livejournal for more snippets.

**i.**

It starts with a baby - _this baby_ , on a damp autumn morning in August. Nino finds her on the steps of their back door, wrapped up in swathes of cotton and plastic bags, her cheeks flushed from the cold. The cardboard box she lies in is damp from the overnight rain, and even from afar, the leaves hang low with dew. The morning is hazy, so misty Nino can’t make out the lines of the street converging in the distance.

It’s 6am and Nino’s phone is sticking out of his pocket, still alight with the text from Jun: _walking from the station, lemme in._ The screen’d fogged up instantly when he rolled out from between Aiba’s tentacle arms and Ohno’s slow, even breathing, wriggling from under their duvet and into Ohno’s cardigan that smells like dried clay and yesterday night’s curry rice. Instinctively, Nino pulls it tighter around himself. It’s far too early, he thinks, his eyelids sticking with leftover sleep; the things he does for Jun.

He presses a hand to his mouth mid-yawn, and in that moment, his fluffy bunny slipper bumps into the damp cardboard box. The baby makes a curious noise. Down the street, Jun’s jogging over, his shined shoes splashing through puddles. He lifts a hand to wave, and there’s a single moment before Nino looks back down -

\- the baby starts wailing.

*

“Whoever left her there either knew what time Matsujun comes home or left her there for _hours,_ ” Aiba points out later, when they’re all gathered in the living room upstairs. He’s blinking at the baby on his knees and the horror in his voice shivers in the air. She stares back at him, wide-eyed, curious and unaware. All their gazes keep drifting restlessly back to her; they’ve gotten weird assignments before but never like this.

“How did they even _know_ about us? No, scratch that, why would they give us a baby - whoever it was.” Sho chews on his leftover _ogura_ toast with a fierce thoughtfulness that someone on three hours of sleep shouldn’t be capable of. He’d slept curled up on the floor in his scrubs; reckoned that since he had to get to the hospital in the morning anyway, pulling out his futon and doing laundry were too much trouble. Jun’s given up telling him off for it.

Beside Sho, Jun’s falling asleep in his damp clothes, having splashed his way through Aiba’s displays of flowers downstairs in search of a towel, then upstairs when he couldn’t find one. “I think the most important question right now is what are we going to do. Leader?” He glances at Ohno.

“We have to keep her for now. Maybe someone will come back for her,” Ohno says, firm despite the way he’s leaning against Aiba, pliant and still futon-warm.

Nino thinks, what if they don’t, maybe that’s it, that’s the job; maybe this is the whole point.

“There’s no space in the house,” Nino blurts the same time that Sho goes, “We can’t.” They meet each other’s eyes over Aiba’s hands and Jun’s frown. Nino looks away first.

“Nobody just leaves babies laying around if they’re coming back for them.” Aiba says. His face twists. His voice trembles. He inhales, and it smoothes out into a whisper, “right?”

A thick dread settles at the bottom of Nino’s stomach. He cup his palm over the back of Aiba’s neck, and he leans into it gratefully. There’s only the sound of Sho crunching on bread crust and Ohno rubbing the side of his foot absently on the tatami floor. Jun exhales, then gets to his feet. His trousers drip. “It’s too early for this. Aiba-chan, go open the shop. Sho-chan, go to work. We’ll think of something.”

Nino pushes back on his hands, runs his eyes across the way Jun’s white shirt clings to his torso that makes the definition of his abs all the more pronounced. “That’s a good look on you, MJ. Maybe you should consider putting it in your work, branch out? Bit of showmanship, maybe?”

Jun flips him off, shaking out an arm so water droplets fly and Sho shields his toast protectively. “You’d better sleep with your taser tonight.”

Aiba laughs. “Nino and Matsujun have been trying to kill each other since I was 13, you’ll get used to it soon." The baby takes one look at his smile, and drools all over his fingers happily.

 

**ii.**

“We can’t not,” Nino says in the evening, after Sho’s shift. They’re sitting on tatami of the living room while their feet rest on the veranda, and a breeze sweeps through the trees and into their open door, early autumn, the air smells like damp earth. Somebody’s frying croquettes.

The baby lies on Nino’s lap, her head on his boney inclined knees, cooing and reaching out whenever she catches sight of his painted nails. They’re teal this week. Aiba had watched him while he painted them, offered up unhelpful colour advice of matching yellow with shocking pink. Nino had rolled his eyes. In response, Aiba grabbed ahold of Nino’s feet and proceeded to paint his toenails exactly those shades. They look horrendous; it’s a mystery how Aiba manages to make a livelihood from arranging bouquets. “You don’t want her to end up like us. Or worse. There’s always a chance she could actually end up worse off than us, you know Sho-chan.”

“Mmm.” Sho exhales, smoke pouring out through his nose. “Doesn’t make it easier though.”

Nino sighs, lets the baby catch one of his fingers and dangles it away again. This close up, Nino cannot bear to refuse her anything, let alone a place in their home. He thinks of the dim rooms of the orphanage; it hadn’t been all bad but that was only because Aiba hid flowers under his pillow and Ohno crawled into his bed after curfew. Everything else - Nino had let time turn foggy. If they dropped her off too, what are the chances she’d be okay? “Will anything make things easier though?”

“More money? Less thinking?” Sho turns to meet Nino’s eyes, his face lit in a wry grin. Nino remembers the year when Sho had smiled like that all the time; 22 and perpetually sleep-deprived from burning midnight oils and _doing them proud._ It’s over ten years ago now, but some days it feels like Sho’s still trying to make up for some kind of guilt.

“See this is why we keep you around, Sho-chan, so there’s someone level-headed enough to stop Aiba from giving too many flowers away for free.” Sho laughs for real this time, as he flicks cigarette ash into the ashtray by his feet.[1](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/597.html)

Nino stares out onto the street, listens to Aiba’s voice drifting up. _Thank you, please have a safe journey!_ He nudges Sho’s shoulder. “Don’t smoke around her. We don’t want her to have Aiba-standard lungs.”

Sho lets out a low chuckle. “ _No one_ should have Aiba-standard lungs,” he agrees, twisting out the ember glow against the turtle-shaped porcelain ashtray that Ohno made and watching, as the wind takes some of the soot away.

 

**iii.**

Two nights after - Friday - Jun and Ohno return home with split lips and bruises under their dress shirts. Jun drops himself heavily in the corner of the living room, his tie tugged loose. Ohno’s already pulling a squashed pack of cigarettes from his jacket and smoothing out one. The movement jostles, and his closed switchblade rolls out of his trouser pocket, into the dim fluorescent light.[2](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/933.html#cutid1)

“They were waiting,” Jun says, catching the bottle of iodine that Aiba lobs from the toilet. He tilts it onto his fingertip and hisses when the purple touches his blood-stained lips. In Nino’s bed, the baby’s been fast asleep for hours.

“And the money?” Sho frowns, closing his textbook. Nino mirrors his concern, turns off the television with his big toe on the switch. It doesn’t make sense, the request had come in through the regular channels. It was supposed to be a quick in-and-out, cash in hand, no surprises.

Ohno sighs, one long breath. Smoke billows. His eyes open, and he’s flicking ash out of the veranda door. “Wasn’t there, the safes were empty. There were more men than necessary, too.”

“Seemed privately hired to me. I think it was a test. They were definitely expecting all five of us.” Ohno makes an agreeing sound. Jun exhales and rests his head on Ohno’s shoulder. His right eye is red and puffy. Nino imagines it’ll be swollen in a bit, his fingers itch with faded sense memories of that muffled pain. “There was something about a scandal. D’you think it concerns us?”

Sho is in their tiny kitchen, balancing filling glasses with tap water with pulling two packets of frozen _chahan_ out of the freezer. He manages. “Can’t tell at this stage. We’ll have to wait it out. You guys doing okay?”

Jun accepts the water, presses the _chahan_ against his face and swallows around a sound of pain. He nods while Ohno leans back into his side, sweeps his open palm soothingly against his back. Outside, the night is calm, steady with slowly-revolving planets making their rounds around the sun, only rippling whenever someone opens the door to the bar across the road and the cacophony of conversations drifts up toward them.

“We’ve had worse,” and Nino finds himself moving, standing up, turning the television back on so the sound of a late-night variety show fills the silence, an audience laughing and a comedian doing a Shimura Ken gag. Sometimes, their reality makes ordinary life seem too bright, garish in comparison to those black-white tuxedos and shadowy places.

“Anyone want food?” Everyone’s hand goes up, gazes already set on the screen. Aiba shuffles into the space between Jun and Ohno, looping an arm around Jun’s shoulders and pushing his fingers gently into his hair. He kisses Ohno’s hair, lingering for a moment longer than necessary, inhales and exhales deeply. He’s done that to all of them, for as long as Nino can remember. Breathing them in so deeply Nino hears the air whooshing in and out of his lungs and his hands warm on their skin, making sure they’re okay and they’re _there._ Jun reaches out, clasps a hand around Aiba’s wrist and closes his eyes. He skipped work tonight for this.

Beside them, Sho’s trying to grab Ohno’s toes with his own for some reason; he keeps cracking himself up. After a while, Ohno starts giggling as well.

Lips twisting, Nino pulls out eggs and packets of instant ramen from the cupboard, _bak choy_ from the vegetable drawer and puts the kettle on to boil.

*

The next morning, Nino wakes up to Aiba and Ohno making out groggily, like a pair of teenagers beside him.

The sunrays are pale, bleached through the windows that Ohno just washed in spring, when he sat on a low stool for an afternoon, drawing spirals on the glass with one of Nino's old shirts. He listens to their lips touch. Their sleepy slow breaths grow into sync gradually, two steady ins and two steady outs. Nino stretches out to make all his frozen extremities fall into that patch of sun in the middle of Ohno and his futons. The coffee machine in the kitchen chimes, something falls and Sho makes a panicked sound. Jun's voice murmurs faintly, disapprovingly.

On their windowsill sit those pressed morning glories Ohno made last week, and sunlight streams through one of his glass vases, casting shadows of dinosaur outlines on the wall. Nino blinks up at the ceiling and watches their ceiling fan rotate slowly, its clicking a faint rhythm in the background of his mind.

Then Ohno rolls over, and Aiba reaches across his hip for Nino's hand.

"It's nice to have you here in the morning, Nino-chan," Aiba mumbles, his tongue thick with the early hours. Ohno nods and yawning, tucks his hand flat under his head. Nino finds himself smiling, a smart comment dying on his tongue. It must be the warm sun on his cold toes, or the way Ohno and Aiba look at him, their hair mussed from sleep and each other's fingers. Then again, he's never been very strong when it comes to the both of them.

Ohno pulls Nino in by the worn fabric of his shirt, snuffs a little at his cheek and Nino's about to tell him off, but then he's leaning in, warm breath, warmer lips. He tastes like morning breath and smells like sleep, the cakey kind that you find in the corners of your eyes in the bathroom mirror. Nino traces his fingers across pillow marks on the underside of his arms, listens closely when Aiba makes a small happy noise and tangles all their legs together.

When Sho gets home, he recounts the aftermath of their scuffle, like he’s done a million times before. He sits at the dining table, back pushed up against the wall and with his hands pressed over his eyes, he talks about 23 patient records made within ten minutes of each other; five with knife wounds, three with concussions and all of them with the smell of gunpowder on their soiled shirts.

“They were all accounted for,” he says. “Paid up front, for the exact period of treatment they’ll need.” Nino feels a chill run down his spine, his heart begins its measured march in his ears. A sudden rush of adrenaline makes him light-headed. Sho scrubs his hands over his head, straightens and rolls his shoulders. His spine makes a loud cracking sound.

Ohno fiddles with the TV remote in his hands. “This is bigger than we expected,” he says. “We need to keep all ears on lookout. Aiba-chan, check if the intel getting in has been toyed with in any way.”

Aiba frowns, nodding. Then, Jun sighs exasperatedly. “Sho-kun, you seriously need to stop sleeping on the floor.”

 

**iv.**

Maru _loves_ her. They should all have expected it.

The moment he catches sight of her, he cajoles Hina to take over at the counter. Nino hands her over carefully, accompanied with a threat that _no one_ will find Maru’s body if he drops her.

“She’s Aiba-chan’s niece,” Jun’s clamouring to explain before Maru sits. He cups her back, cooing like he’s an amateur birdwatcher trying to get birds to land on his hand. After five minutes, he looks up at Jun and Nino, perfectly serious.

“Do you think she likes coffee?”

Jun shrugs, his hands huddled around his own short black. His black eye has turned purple today; everyone seems to think they do really serious recreational boxing. “She seems to like the smell of it well enough. I don’t have much experiences with babies but I’m don’t think we should be feeding her any additives.”

“You don’t want her to end up with a _kissaten_ and three idiots when she grows up, do you,” Nino adds, grinning. “Says the guy in a _kissaten_ with those three idiots,” Hina retorts. He turns the steam knob deftly, holding a canister filled with milk to it and watching carefully for smaller bubbles to form.

It’s usually Sho and Ohno who’s here, the former drinking copious amounts of coffee to stay standing through ten-hour shifts and the latter who likes dozing off on the counter during conversations with Yasu. Nino just enjoys the luxurious normality of this; of sitting in a coffee shop, soothed by the coolness of dark wood while the harsh deafening grinding of beans swallows up the world, leaving in its wake the scent of coffee and hay that clings to his clothes for days. It makes him feel like he's stepped a foot out from the world.

And there’s Hina. There’s the way he talks, whip-fast, always ready with the right words to chide, tease and comfort, always acutely aware of the nuances in Nino’s words, just like Jun. It's familiar, comforting.

Now, Maru nods thoughtfully. “That’s true, huh. What about chocolate!”

Hina reaches across the small space just to smack him over his head. Yasu chokes on giggles, manages _Sorry, ma’am I just -_ into the change in his hands.

 

**v.**

Aiba doesn’t say anything about it - Nino suspects he doesn’t even realise - but in typical Aiba-fashion, he starts calling her _Hoshii,_ as in ‘wanted’, as in ‘important’, ‘treasured’, and ‘loved’. The effect is spoilt immediately though, by how he follows that with incoherent mumbling, to which Hoshii-chan always responds delightedly. Nino wonders a lot about her understanding of the world, and the possibility that she’s just being patient with her bumbling humans.

But then, Ohno mishears and calls her _Hoshi._ When he’s not at work, she lets him draw stars all over her soft arms and legs, in his tiny studio under the stairs. [3](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/1221.html#cutid1) She holds still for him for entire stretches of twenty minutes, even though she kicked Sho in the face last week while he tried to change her diapers.

After a while, Jun adopts the name Shii-chan. It’s the most stylish name _ever._ Nino doesn’t even know adult Shii-chans who have managed to live up to that expectation. But then, she’s wearing that grey bodysuit that Aiba and Jun bought her, the one with tiny pugs all over and Nino thinks, maybe she’ll do okay.

It’s not supposed to be a competition but it’s just the way things inevitably end up in their house. Sho watching her one morning as he eats his breakfast, calls her _bara-bara_ when she crawls all around him, staccato beats of her hands and knees on the tatami, and leaves her toys on his feet. It’s not quite morning yet, dawn shifts outside their open doors. Sho is swaying on his feet from far too many hours at the hospital, and Nino would say something about it, but maybe not now.

“Bara-bara-chan,” he murmurs between bites, wriggling his toes when she becomes fascinated with his polka-dotted socks.

Nino’s phone buzzes. It’s Jun. _Leaving station, come get me._ He peers up, over his game. “Are you calling her a rose? Or are you just being critical about her lack of organisation?”

Sho’s face spreads slowly into a smile. “Definitely a rose,” he replies, and bends to sit cross-legged on the ground so she can crawl all over him instead.

 

**vi.**

A call comes in a week after she gets to them.

Four days after Sho makes a space for her by his futon, six after Aiba and Nino get home laden with a pram and library books on what she can and cannot eat. They don’t know what they were going to do with her, but for now she is part of the family, and they’ve always taken care of their own.

The shop’s landline rings just after they open on Wednesday, and Ohno’s the one who picks up. He tells them later, in the evening upstairs when Jun’s standing in the kitchen checking the pasta and Sho’s falling asleep in his scrubs, that there was an office lady looking at lavender in the fridge. Aiba’s talking her ear off about how he’d read about making scented oil from dried stalks, the process of pressing them in huge machines and rooms that smell like summers in Hokkaido.

Ohno leans back in his seat behind the counter, pulls his feet up onto the bottom rung of his chair. “Hi, it’s Storm Makers. What can I do for you today?”

There’s no reply. Ohno frowns. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Then a voice, frayed around the edges goes, “The baby - I was the one who left her there.”

Ohno sits up straighter, suddenly hyper conscious of the doorbell ringing as a middle-aged man enters, the teenager talking into her phone outside. Across the street, someone enters the bar; his own _tantou_ and Aiba’s _chigiriki_ lay on the bottom shelf of the counter behind Nino’s half-done tax returns. Aiba’s still talking, gestures turned slow, weighted. Ohno knows he’s now listening too.

He balances the phone in the crook of his neck, and pulls out a notepad to make as if he’s taking orders. “Yes, what kind of flowers would you like for us to include? We also do deliveries.”

The voice, feminine, hesitant turns confused in a single moment, says, “did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand. We can do that. It’s a little late in lavender season right now, but we have some in stock. Do you have a delivery address and preferred time and day?” There is a swallowing sound on the other end. Ohno hums thoughtfully. “If you prefer, you can come collect your order too.”

“Yes, I would prefer that.” The voice says, catching on, realisation dawning.

“Ah, that’s fine. What time would suit you? We open until 5pm daily, you can come by afterwards? We’ll have your arrangement prepared for you.”

“Thursday,” they say, firm, no room for argument. Ohno glances at the date on the computer screen. It’s Wednesday.

“Okay,” he says, scribbling on the notepad. Aiba’s started gesturing again, having heard the loosening in Ohno’s voice. “We’ll see you then.”

*****

They’re there to meet her, even if Ohno had to call in sick at the _combini_ and Sho cut through several red lights to get here on time. He's just descending the stairs, clean feet squeaking against the wood and his hair dripping from the bath. Aiba transfers some of the older sunflowers from their individual wrappers into a glass vase for Maru. It has a print of grass running around the bottom rim, made by Ohno’s hands and blown in Akito’s woodfired oven that’s meant for pizzas, but is versatile when they need it to be, which really, is whenever Ohno decides to make teacups for everyone he knows.[ 4](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/1509.html#cutid1)

Jun has Shii-chan. He sits with one of Sho’s old shirts over his fancy silk one, just so he won’t be covered in baby puke at work tonight. She dozes, still sleepy from taking a nap with him a few hours ago.

She comes in at 5.05pm, just after Aiba’s lowered the blinds behind the front door but left it unlocked, a wispy woman, long hair tucked into a messy bun and her eyes hidden behind tortoise shell spectacle frames. Nino doesn’t know what he expected, perhaps someone with red-rimmed eyes and a nervous disposition, or maybe a stutter and trembling hands. But not this, definitely not this gentle, quiet surety, a firmness in the line of her back when she bows and asks for the man on the phone yesterday. She makes him think of the bamboo forests on Arashiyama; thin, strong trunks reaching towards the heavens and blurring out the sun.

Ohno lifts a hand from folded arms, and pushes off from the counter’s edge. “I’m Ohno Satoshi, it’s good to finally meet you.”

“My name is Kitagawa Keiko,” she says and takes the hand he holds out. “I apologise deeply for the trouble I’ve brought you.”

Later, she tells them the whole story upstairs, starting from the beginning with her hands around a mug of steaming _mugicha_ that Sho made her take. Her glasses keep fogging over intermittently and when she exhales, the steam clouds and envelops her face. She speaks about an illicit affair with a higher-up government official, between writing articles for _Tokyo Shimbun_ and reporting on Japan’s improving relations with China, afternoons spent in five-star hotels and lunch at cleared-out double Michelin star restaurants, love-making that makes Sho fidget.

It wasn’t necessarily for love or money, she says as she pushes her glasses up her nose. Her mug sits cold and empty by her knee. She shrugs. But it definitely wasn’t just sex either. She doesn’t clarify that, only speaks with a deliberate detachment that Nino comes to admire.

All through it, her eyes keep finding Shii-chan, who’s nestled in Ohno’s arms by the end of the evening. By the time Kitagawa gets to her birth - autumn last year just as the leaves were turning orange and the air acquired a chill that made hands search out warmth - Jun’s left for work and Shii-chan is awake and fussing.

“Would you like to take a break?” Aiba asks, not pushing. Nino takes Shii-chan from Ohno. There's a milk bottle soaking in a warm water bath that Jun prepared just before he left. They’d read about this in one of the library books, and he'd taken to it like he was born to keep small humans alive.

It’s almost seven in the evening and from the open kitchen window, he hears Hina saying goodbye to Yasu, the tinkling acknowledgement of a bicycle bell and another voice, Yoko’s, offering to take the coffee grounds out. The streetlights flicker on with the crackle of static, and he remembers it’s Thursday as he holds the bottle’s teat to Shii-chan’s mouth. Yoko only works Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.[5](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/1554.html#cutid1)

Kitagawa exhales. “Can I have more tea, please,” and Sho’s already taking her cup, moving towards the kitchen. He meets Nino’s eyes in the small space and cocking his eyebrows, conveying disbelief and exhaustion in one expression. He has to get up at two tomorrow morning. Usually, he’d be asleep by now.

Nino gives him a grin, sharp. “All part of the job, isn’t it, Sho-chan. Who was it who said _how cool_ it would be to lead a double life.”

Sho’s shoulders drop dramatically. It creates a steeper shoulder gradient than the world has ever seen. He sets Kitagawa’s cup on the countertop, chuckling helplessly, “you’re never going to let that one go, are you.”

Nino lets out a giggle, “Not any time soon. Oh, I’ll get Aiba-chan to set the time on the coffee machine before he goes to bed tonight.”

“If you’re trying to be nice, shouldn’t you do it yourself.” Sho looks thoughtful for a moment, then pulls out another four mugs and proceeds to fill them up as well.

“Ha, who said anything about being nice?” Nino says as he bounces on his knees so Shii-chan bounces too. She loves it when he does that, and she’s smiling now, showing off her four teeth and a whole lot of pink gum as she tries to grab Nino’s nose but ends up bopping it instead. Nino growls playfully, and she seems to take that as a sign of enjoyment so she does it again.

Sho laughs, his eyes crinkle. “You’re terrible,” and Nino salutes him with as much smugness as he can muster.

Kitagawa looks up when they emerge. “You’ve been looking after her well,” she says. It’s an expression of awe and gratitude, but somehow it comes out wrong. She looks so small in the dim light of the living room, the expanse of pale tatami like a sea on all sides.

Sho shrugs, almost languid with how tense he’s become in the span of a moment. He sets the cups on the ground and stretches out, takes up space with the sheer volume of his restrained anger. “Well, we know how it feels like." It’s a jab that just glances the surface of all the things that they've all been thinking for days, but none have even come close to voicing. In their line of work, it’s dangerous to get attached in their assignments, and these - Shii-chan, Kitagawa, all those new baby things in their house - are only here because they hit too close to home.

Ohno uncrosses his legs, “I think I need some air.” He touches Sho’s white knuckles with his fingertips, “cigarette break?” They disappear out onto the veranda and slide the door shut. Nino watches their silhouettes through the paper, the orange glow of flame to cigarette end and in his head, the grey, toxic scent of smoke fills his lungs too.

“What are you going to do?” Nino asks, because as much as Aiba and Ohno are willing to, they can’t keep Shii-chan forever.

Kitagawa pulls her knees to her chest. “I can’t look after her at the moment. Two weeks ago, a man approached me, saying -” here, her voice shudders minutely,” - Yamashita wanted to see me, to talk about Chie. I threatened to pepper spray him on the street if he came any closer.”

“Did he know? About Shii -- Chie-chan?” Nino passes Shii-chan to Aiba, who holds her out to Kitagawa. She blinks for a moment, then accepts her and presses her to her heart.

“He didn’t know I was pregnant. I knew he would want me to get an abortion, so I cut off all communication with him when I found out. I suppose, he did, in the end. Find out, I mean.” Kitagawa lifts her eyes from Shii-chan, and swallows. “I’m trying to figure out what to do from here, but I can’t protect her if they decide to take a harder method, and I’d heard about you, during an interview once. Someone told me off record that you helped them. That you kept them safe even when you were fighting others. So I - did what I had to.”

Something in Nino’s memory sparks. “Listen, last week our Matsumoto-kun and Ohno-san responded to intel about some dirty money that the _yakuza_ s had stashed away for someone else - someone called Ueno? We were told that security was minimal but there were more men than we expected, fully armed. Do you think it’s - Is there a possibility that this is linked to Chie somehow?”

Kitagawa’s throat works for a moment, gaze darting, calculating. Then she swallows and her body braces as if anticipating a fight. “There’s a high chance it’s linked. Hiroshi - he likes to plan before he acts. Make sure he knows what he’s getting into and - I don't know how but maybe he heard.”

Aiba gets to his feet, reaching out a hand to help her up. “Kitagawa-san, I promise we’ll do everything we can to protect her, but please make sure you are safe too." Fumbling for the right words, “tell me: did you know Matsujun was going to come home at that time?”

Kitagawa looks him square in his eyes and nods, “I knew.” That night, Ohno puts Shii-chan to bed. Recently she’s been sleeping between the three of them, but today he tucks her into an extra futon, making a nest from extra blankets. Then he crawls into Nino’s futon and pushes his head into his shoulder, exhaling when Nino presses his cold fingers to the back of Ohno’s head, stroking skin to reach the top of his spine. It’s been a long week, Nino feels it too, memories surfacing, sitting in his bones and waiting to be brought to light again. He’s fought them for too long to let them out now.

Ohno’s exhales fall warm on Nino’s collarbones and they shift when Aiba joins them, so Ohno is sandwiched in the middle. “You’re doing great, Oh-chan.” Nino murmurs into his hair, meets Aiba’s eyes over his head. They’re shiny in the semi-darkness, and Nino’s heart _burns_ with ache. He reaches over and finds the valley of Aiba’s waist, his hip, that jut of bone and the familiar rhythm of his breathing, then the nape of Ohno’s neck, that gentle slope of hair and smooth skin.

Aiba kisses the back of Ohno's neck between the gaps of Nino’s fingers, staying for long moments. The streetlights are glancing through the trees, leaving dapples of leaf shadows on their walls, and in the next room, Sho starts snoring.

Exhaling, Aiba tucks his hand against Ohno’s belly, like he used to when they were kids and wrung out from those endless, empty days. Then Nino hears the shifting of worn fabric on bare skin, and Aiba pressing words into the curve of Ohno’s shoulder, saying “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.".”[6](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/1879.html#cutid1)

 

**vii.**

Two things happen in the week after Kitagawa’s visit:

 **(1)** Sho starts bringing Shii-chan on jobs with them because no one wants to stay at home while everyone’s out “fighting evil”.

 **(2)** Nino wears his skirts and dresses everyday.[ 7](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/2271.html#cutid1)

The former was admittedly, expected. Everyone likes Shii-chan well enough, but no one’s about to volunteer for Baby Duty and _miss out_. The latter, too. Summer is fast running out and late August this year is warm enough, especially after days of that insistent drizzle that makes Tokyo look like the city in Blade Runner, except not so bloodthirsty. (Jun would argue otherwise.)

On Tuesday, Nino and Sho trek out to the supermarket for groceries. They buy enough pork belly and _kimchi_ to feed an army and come home to find that Aiba and Jun have set up the clay barbeque on the roof. It sits in the centre of a circle of beach chairs, surrounded by beautifully plated ingredients, courtesy of Jun’s theatrical flair and obsessive love of tiny things.

While Jun and Sho set up, Nino plants his elbows on the railings and breathes in the rain-enriched earth. The city sprawls out, as if one of those overly expensive lush carpets rolling out from under his feet. Autumns in Chiba were always quieter than this, slower and filled with dwindling afternoon trips to the beach, warm sand between his toes while the approaching dusk was cold where it kissed his cheeks, Jun yelling laughter into the wind as they raced back to make curfew.

This afternoon, Koenji is alive. He drinks in the clear blue skies and Maru’s laundry waving in the sun next door, jeans making dark puddles on the concrete.

At ground level, there are people hurrying around, large enough for Nino to discern their clothing choices but tiny enough for him not to hate. Someone with bright green hair and a pink dress, a couple gazing so deeply into each other’s eyes that they’re blocking up half the pavement. A kid emerges from the _kissaten_ next door with a muffin, and Yasu rushes out to hand her napkins. Aiba, fixing one of the ferns on the shopfront, waves and Nino hears talk about purple roses and Yoko’s bicycle. He closes his eyes, breathes out. It’s taken him a long time but like this, Tokyo is bearable.

Across the street, on their own roof, Kotaki is dozing on a rickety sun chair, sunglasses sliding off the tip of his nose. Next to him, Ryusei has a paperback spread over his face and another open on his chest. Nino rests his cheek on the open palm of his hand and smiles, pictures them both afterwards, so tanned their customers might lose sight of them during service. Perhaps Kotaki will have tan lines in the shape of his sunglasses, and Shigeoka will call him Panda-pants again.

By the time Ohno gets home from his shift bearing day-old _karaage bento_ s, a fire is roaring, white-hot charcoal crumbling apart in the white-hot heat. These days are growing shorter, but sunsets still streak candyfloss purple and pink across the sky.

As Ohno settles, Nino thrusts a sauce bowl filled with too much _ponzu_ towards him. It sloshes, spills onto Ohno’s hand and he licks it up, crow’s feet deepening at that sour tang of citrus and salt, and Nino’s leg hooking over his knee. Then Nino watches as Ohno’s mirth slows, mellows out long into patient want when he leans over to kiss him. Under the hem of Nino’s skirt, Ohno’s hand inches upwards. Nino feels the ticklish scrape of his fingernails on the tender insides of his thigh. Just as he’s about to swat them away, the fingers stop.

Ohno exhales minutely and leaves them there. Nino knocks their knees together, looking up in time to find Ohno's face spreading slowly into a smile.

Across the grill, Sho’s already tipsy on cheap beer and good company. He’s got a fist clenched loosely around the buttons of Aiba’s striped cardigan and his head lolls against Aiba’s shoulder. Nino can’t make out what he’s laughing at, but snatches of a _haiku_ by Aibadrift over, sounding like _erotic shapes of beef_ \- yet another masterpiece by The Ero-Master. (Once, he spotted a penis-shaped cloud and set it as his phone’s wallpaper for ages.)

Shii-chan sits on his lap, fidgeting and watching Jun with curious eyes. Her shaker rattles when she gnaws on it, and the sky is loud with Sho’s breathless guffaws. Jun, orange glow licking his nose, nudges a cabbage package of meat and rice into Ohno’s hands and squeezes Nino’s wrists as he passes. When he settles back into his seat, Shii-chan stretches out from Aiba’s hands, demanding to be held.

Nino’s fingers slip around his beer bottle, condensation peeling the label away from the glass. It’s room temperature now, from the day-warmed roof and his unexpected pensiveness, so he steals a gulp of Ohno’s and slides down in his seat. The fire’s heat is just on the side of too hot against his knees, everything smells like sizzling pork and burnt wood. He sets his eyes in the distance, on the tips of skyscrapers and the outlines of their points blurring against the blue sky, and waits for the night to swallow the sun.

 

**viii.**

Two days later, an Irregular comes to pick up flowers.[8](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/2435.html#cutid1) She lurks outside on the shopfront for a while, considering one of the tiny plants, a tiny cacti in a red pot that fits within the palm of her hand.

Nino notices her from inside the shop. Her neon-coloured puffy vest would stand out anywhere, even Harajuku, let alone against their quiet street on this sluggish afternoon. He hums, continues pretending that he’s doing actual work and waits until she picks up the repotted broccoli flowers. At the counter, Aiba’s busy ringing up what seems to be someone’s lifetime supply of fertiliser, so Nino strides across the shop floor. He sticks his head out of the front door and grins. The bell tinkles merrily overhead.

“Hey, hey,” Becky sing-songs, trailing in after him, flowers and cactus balanced in each hand. Her long, long skirt swishes behind her, lends her an air of elegance that Nino would argue is completely unfounded.

“What can we do for you today?” He asks, as the customer at the counter leaves ladened with four bags of plant food. There’s another protocol entirely if the shop’s busy but it’s not today, in this lull that makes Nino sleepy and grateful for any little bit of excitement he can get.

Nino rounds the corner and bumps his hip against Aiba’s companionably.

“Hi Becky!” Aiba says, sounding pleasantly surprised. They usually only see her on delivery day but sometimes she comes in bearing news, and every single time, they end up relocating upstairs to play a few rounds of Unnecessarily Aggressive and Competitive Mario Kart. “What’s shaking?”

Becky's laughter rings out. “Aiba-chan, you’re never going to sound like a cowboy.” She slides her tiny cactus across the counter and fishes change out from her vest pocket, dropping hundred yen coins on the counter. “Just this please, aaaaand this.” From some other hidden pocket, she pulls out a slip of paper. It’s torn from her planner, the last week of May disappearing into jagged edges. There are prints of cheerful giraffes all around the border. “Overheard this on the comms last night, thought you’d like to know.”

Aiba reaches across to take it. Becky turns to Nino, smiling, warm and crinkly-eyed. He recalls the first time they met. Their bicycles had crashed into each other rounding a blind corner and she’d broken half of her delivery pots. Afterwards, Jun had commented that it sounded exactly like the cold open of a _shoujo_ _anime_ episode. Except instead of a summer romance, he ended up with another person in his life who keeps getting him to adopt stray kittens every other week.

“Our bedroom window has been looking a little sad lately,” she explains, gesturing to the little pot that Nino’s slipping into a fold-out cardboard holder. “Nino-chan, you look very pretty,” and Nino narrows his eyes. His skirt is navy blue with white stripes today, but nobody ever talks about it as casually as Becky does.

“Then you’d better name this cactus after me,” he says and out of the overwhelming kindness of his heart, gives her one of Yasu’s blueberry and white chocolate bars from under the counter. It’s still warm and for a moment, its sweet, fruity scent wafts up into the air. Nino rubs his finger tips together, the buttery grease sticks.

“Too late, I’m naming it after Shihori.” Becky tears off a corner and munches nosily. “She says hi by the way. She's working today. Ooh, Aiba-chan told me about Shii-chan!"

Before Nino can reply, Aiba exhales clumsily. It sounds too much like a sigh for Nino’s comfort. “Thank you, Becky-chan. I’ll talk to the rest.”

Becky nods, rolling back on her heels. Then she’s cocking her head mischieviously, cracking her knuckles and going, “I have all afternoon, Aiba-shi. I’m gonna _crush_ you.”

Aiba narrows his eyes, and crosses the shop to turn the OPEN sign over. “We’ll see about that, Nino, be our referee.”

“I never said I wanted this job, and _every time-_ ” He grumbles but he’s already climbling the stairs, already making out above their routine pre-Mario-Kart thrash talk: _Yamashita Hiroshi, Kitagawa Keiko looking into_ _rumours of embezzlement._

 

**ix.**

They go that night, texting Kitagawa in advance to make sure.

None of them wanted to wait, especially if it might concern her and Shii-chan.

Sho had taken a look at the note and frowned.

“Do we all need to go? Will we get in the way?” He asked, checking the clock. He had a shift starting in six hours, but Aiba was already loading Ohno’s gun and Jun had already suited up, tucking a thermos of warmed milk into the place where his hip flask used to sit. It didn't quite fit, but it’ll do.

“After last week, it’s safer if four of us go. Sho-kun, you don’t have to,” Ohno answered, finally gathering all his knives in the same place. His movements, as he practised reaching for his holster, was still a little too stiff for Nino’s liking.

“Yeah, yeah. You say that, but every time I haven’t gone, someone comes back hurt from doing a stupid thing,” Sho grumbled, as he started systematically assembling his guns.

Nino wriggled into his black dress, commenting "Sho-kun, at this point there's no use denying that you're basically the baby-proof corners to our scary sharp edges," and made loud kissing noises until Sho chucked Nino's taser at his head.

Now they’re staring up at Kitagawa’s apartment building from the tinted windows of their van and Shii-chan’s trying her best to inhale every drop of milk what with the way she is sucking on the teat of her empty bottle. Nino double-checks the address on his phone, just to be sure.

Ohno twists around in the passenger’s seat, “who’s going to say what?”

Nino shrugs, “anybody, anything but Aiba-chan,” and Aiba lunges from the backseat to whack him over his head. “Last time you did that my arm was in a sling for three weeks, okay.”

Sho turns the engine off. The van chokes out a shudder. “This isn’t going to be a diplomatic discussion anyway, we just have to make sure we’re on the same page so we can protect her and Shii-chan better. The last time - I - I don't want to do it. Nino and Aiba-chan can be on talking duty instead. Jun-kun will be in charge of Shii-chan, Leader and I will take watch.”

Sho and Ohno check each other’s weapons before they get out, and Jun makes sure his gun is within easy reach even with Shii-chan hoisted on his back. They fall into their roles easily, silent other than the moment that the single, sad bonsai plant outside Kitagawa’s front door elicits mumbling from Aiba.

She lets them in, offers them tea and Jun, Nino and Aiba gather around her small coffee space while Sho and Ohno check the perimeter. It’s a tiny one-bedroom apartment, sparsely decorated and littered with haphazard, tilted stacks of books. When he sits, Nino finds a dangly earring under the table.

“Sorry for the mess; I’ve been working on a story, haven’t been home much,” she smiles, a little bashful. Jun lifts Shii-chan onto the ground so she sits between them, babbling and trying to grab hold the hem of Kitagawa’s long skirt.

“Aah, no no, we're sorry for the short notice, it’s just that we received something this afternoon that couldn’t be confirmed over the phone,” Aiba pulls out the note from Becky, smoothing it out on the coffee table, and it is as if everyone's holding their breath. When she looks up, her eyes are wide.

“I didn’t think -” she begins, then rushes to riffle through a box of unattached papers by her charging laptop. They go _everywhere._ “This story I’ve been working on - concerns embezzlement in the Diet, but I haven’t been able to link it to any specific perpetrators, they’ve been buried so deep within the system it’s hard to get a handle on -”

"You say Yamashita-san doesn't know where you live right?" Jun asks. He's frowning, has on his thinking face that Nino would recognise from miles away.

From across the room, Sho clears his throat, and with disbelief in his voice goes, "You're _still_ poking around?" In a split second, Kitagawa's fingers go white around her papers and she exhales, so controlled the air whistles through her teeth.

"Sakurai-san, I understand your concern. But you can't deny that this is important." Her jaw is set, sudden tightness in the line of her back. The tension in the room is palpable, _thick,_ like the beginning scent of a fire, sparks catching on dry wood and roaring to life. Jun stands to hand Shii-chan over to Sho, a hand on the back of his spine as Sho uncurls his fists and fits them around her instead, letting her tap her open palm on his forehead playfully. Nino watches as they retreat into the kitchen, Sho's head tilted downwards to listen.

Kitagawa exhales. "Sorry," she sighs, ducking her head in embarrassment, almost. "It's just - this is a lot. Everything - life." She meets Aiba's eyes, then Nino's, a self-deprecating noise escaping from her lips. Then she shakes herself visibly, "He doesn't know. At least I don't think so. I've taken great pains to keep it from him."

"Does he know you left her with us," Jun starts slow. He's so still now, beside Nino that he can feel his every breath, in and out. He _knows_ something all of them are not getting.

Kitagawa swallows. "No, no definitely not."

"If he doesn't know we're connected -" Jun gestures, chewing on his bottom lip.

Someone raps on the door. Kitagawa jumps. Nino feels Aiba's body move, automatically positioning himself in front of Kitagawa as he reaches for his chain whip. Jun tucks his hand into his jacket, and Nino closes around around the familiar grip of his taser.

Across the room, Ohno's rolling his silencer onto the barrel of his gun. Nino meets his eyes and nods, once, going for the door. Outside there are three men in suits. The first one blinks when he sees him. Nino can see the way his eyes run down his figure, take in the make-up, his mustard yellow nails and his dress.

"And what the fuck are you supposed to be," he growls. The words sound like a mouthful of pebbles, a curse. Kitagawa's voice drifts towards him, and Nino hears Aiba calling out his name in confirmation before he lunges. In a flash, Nino forgoes his taser, gets one hand around the pepper spray in his pocket and with his right, drags the man in by the collar of shirt.

The man, caught off guard, only starts struggling when they hit the _genkan_ step, but the force of Nino's grip makes him trip. He flounders for footing he can't find. Behind him, the other two advance, about to reach for Nino when Ohno engages. He hears the _sssschick_ of Ohno unsheathing his daggers, and someone pushing the door closed.

The man grabs out to dislodge Nino. His fist catches hold of Nino's shoulder, but then Nino press on the trigger, and he goes down coughing, kicking out a foot, getting Nino in his knee. It makes Nino slip, roll on the ground, leaping and using his body weight to hold the guy down. Then he clambers around his midriff to punch his cheek. The momentum throws his head sideways, a trail of blood and spit flying, splattering across the floor.

Nino presses his open palm against his trembling throat, pushing his thumb on the soft flesh under the man's chin so he has to tilt backwards, bare his neck.

"This, is what I'm supposed to be," Nino grits out. He's breathing hard, half from the struggle, half from this white-hot anger that burns through his veins and makes him press down harder. The man gurgles, chokes on the air in his lungs. His body spasms. This guy fights dirty, like all the wannabe _yakuza_ kids they took on after class in high school. "Why are you here, who sent you?"

The man heaves. His lungs make a wheezing sound. "Fuck you -" he spits out, and Nino tightens his hold. The skin around the man's eyes has swelled up in to a painful shade of red; he can't even open his eyes.

"Tell me, or your friends are going back with your purple corpse in a bag." Nino snarls. The apartment is silent now. He feels the rest behind him, the combined weight of their gazes.

Shii-chan starts to cry.

"Ueno," the man says through clenched teeth. His lip is bleeding, Nino doesn't remember hitting him there. "The reporter Kitagawa - knowing too much -"

It takes a moment for realisation to dawn. It hadn't been for Shii-chan at all; this hadn't _all_ been about her.

"Fuck," Nino deflates, letting go of the man's shirt so forcefully that his head hits the floor. He gets up in a daze. " _Fuck_." Frustration makes him scrub his hands over his face. His palms come away stained with foundation and lipstick. They'd been thinking about this _all wrong_.

"We need to go," Sho's voice commands, urgent. "We all need to go, come on."

Nino looks up and sees his shock mirrored in Ohno's face, but his voice is also saying _come on, come on, Nino_ so he takes his outreached hand and follows.

*

In AKAN Love afterwards, Nino admires his scabbed knuckles under the low light and tells Hamada what he did, his hushed words scrabble across the vinyl bar top and fall straight into Hamada’s shaker.[9](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/2685.html#cutid1)

His head is still spinning, the beginning of the night feels like an eternity away now, Ohno tracing the outline of his lips with a lip-liner and complaining when he kept fidgeting. Nino thinks about Kitagawa in their home now, Sho's face when he'd spread out the extra futon in Nino's room and left for work with his scrubs in a bag. Jun when he left too, in a different suit. Aiba had walked him out, and they had stood outside under the awnings of their backdoor, talking for twenty minutes, until Aiba returned and stuck his cold fingers under Nino's jumper.

All of a sudden, Shige is popping out of the back room to high-five Nino across the bar. He gets bits of dough in between Nino’s fingers and laughs too loud, too toothily, but today Nino doesn’t mind it so much.

Hamada slides a lemon bitter towards him.

“On the house,” he says, stretching towards Nino weirdly. Hamada always seems to take any chance he can get to contort into strange shapes. “Good job.”

Akito sends him home with baguettes for everyone, and the timeless advice of _anything can be a weapon if you try hard enough, but stale bread is probably better than fresh though._

 

**x.**

After cashing in favours and pulling all the strings she's got, Kitagawa still doesn't have much on Yamashita. But it'll do.

"It's enough to bring him down a few notches. At least we can prove that he's dabbled with the _yakuza_ , and he's connected _in some way_ to Ueno. Whether willingly or not is another matter," Sho says, scanning through her notes, all those compressed pen scribbles with what looks like grudging admiration. His hair sticks out uncombed, flat down one side where his head had hit the pillow upon reaching home this morning. His eyes are still bloodshot but he's in fresh scrubs again, and it makes Nino want to fuss. This overworked and perpetually tired Sho-chan, seeing him like this makes Nino want to make sure he's eating enough, drinking liquids that are not coffee. But he knows Sho hates that; pushed him away once when he tried, griping _Nino, I'm an adult. I'm the older brother here._ So Nino stopped.

It's dark out.

Nino spent the entire day with Aiba in the flower shop, taking stock for the new week, placing flowers out in the shopfront to Aiba's very detailed instructions of _can you make it more_ enticing _, or like - welcoming or something?_ In the afternoon, Ohno had emerged from his studio with hands of clay and offered to take over at the till, so they could go next door to cajole Maru for free coffee. They found Subaru there today, hunched over the counter with a dark espresso between his fingers. He'd answered at least, when they inquired after the band, those new songs they played in the _kissaten_ a few months ago, and the program for their live gigs at that dodgy pub in Shinjuku.

Then, they took a walk afterwards, after dropping off a cup of takeaway for Ohno who had been bent over a sketch sheet of foods he'd felt like eating. Meandering, past Hikawa Shrine and the ice-cream shop, when the sun was going down behind squished-together houses, and Aiba asked thoughtfully, _do you think Shota-kun is happy?_ And Nino thought of the way Yasu still looked at Subaru, his eyes watery with tenderness and his words going all willing and wanting.

 _I don't know_ , he'd replied. _I hope so_ - _they must have split up for a reason._ Aiba had sighed wistfully then, wearing a troubled look that said he was feeling too hard for other people.[ 10](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/2938.html#cutid1) Then on the way back, they stopped for _matcha_ soft-cream, and Nino was reminded once again that Aiba should not be considered an adult, if he can't even finish an ice-cream without getting it _all over_ his hands. They even had to dash the rest of the way home, so he could wash his arms before they stuck to everything he touched.

"Any kind of evidence is enough to bring politicians down a few notches. We could use with more people like Kitagawa-san, really," Nino says distractedly. There are reruns of the first _Kinnikuman_ series on NTV, and Aiba's been spending evenings watching them over dinner. His arm around Nino's shoulder has gone slack. He's probably forgotten about it, and Nino will have to listen to him complain about arm aches the entire evening.

Sho hums, shuffling a bunch of papers around in his hand, a finger at a spot he found interesting. In the bathroom mirror, Jun is putting his face on. When he bends for moisturiser, Nino finds his back streaked with scratch marks.

"Adventurous night yesterday, MJ?" Nino teases. Jun flips him off without even turning around.

"Nino, you say that now, but what if we wake up tomorrow to another three more babies downstairs. Word gets around fast," Sho looks up to wriggle his eyebrows. It just looks weird, like he's got something stuck in his throat and can't get it out.

"Never do that again, Sho-chan, especially not in public." Nino shifts, making to get up but a sound of protest rumbles in Aiba's chest. It's barely there, but enough for Nino to roll his eyes and lean back down again. "Plus if that happens, Aiba-chan will adopt them all and give them names also. Right?"

It takes Aiba a moment to reply, and when he does, the words sound like they're trying so hard to be comprehensible Japanese, but not quite reaching yet.

Then, their room door slides open. The atmosphere in the room changes. Sho straightens from his slouch, and Jun shakes out his dress shirt. Kitagawa steps out with Shii-chan, a pen keeping her hair in a messy bun. Another sits behind her ear. Nino can feel Sho staring; so much for being arch nemeses.

"I've decided, I'm going to meet Hiroshi-san," she announces with aplomb. Aiba goes to take Shii-chan from her arms, settling back beside Nino with his knees drawn to his chest. His body language has changed. Suddenly, he's stiffer, his angles poking Nino in the ribs when just a moment before he was all concaves, sleepily so.

"What do you mean -" Sho starts, frown forming, but Jun's buttoning up his shirt and promising, "We'll be there."

Kitagawa nods, grateful. "Thank you," she bows, and takes a moment to find the right words. "I can't thank you enough for the help, for letting me stay here, for keeping Chie safe."

Later when a silence has settled and Kitagawa has gone back into the room, Jun slips his arms into the sleeves of his suit jacket. The ironed fabric makes a soft swishing sound.

"This is not our decision to make, Sho-kun." The resignation in his voice betrays the firm line of his back. Nino remembers when Jun was the one screaming at the world, sneaking into the administrations office because he was losing the picture of his parents in his mind.

"I know, but -" Sho begins, a startled frustration blooming on his face that says he'd forgotten, that he _wants_ this to be his choice. "I'm going to be late," he finishes, grabbing his bag and stomping down the stairs, even though the clock over the TV reads 8:38pm and his shift only starts at 11.

After Jun calls out _I'm leaving_ , Nino sighs, mutters "This is not the orphanage anymore." On the TV, _Kinnikuman_ is triumphant once again.

All Aiba does is blow a raspberry in Shii-chan's belly, and pretends he hadn't heard.

*

It's late now. The house is dark, silent. Kitagawa must be asleep, but then again, they hadn't checked.

Ohno only got back half an hour ago. They hadn't meant to stay up waiting, but it just happened. It’s past midnight, they should be asleep, planned to be, but this tiredness weighs heavy on Nino’s mind. Slumber only makes daylight arrive faster, hurtling towards them. So what if all he wants to do is sit in a dark place, to be soothed by the ringing silence and ethereality of witching hour, and _maybe_ some annoyingly cheery game music? At this point, time is irrelevant anyway. He's been on his 3DS for hours, his back hurts, and his eyes are dry from staring at the screen.

When he finally looks up, blinking rapidly at the solitary light bulb on the veranda, the backs of his eyelids are stained purple and blue from the light, and Ohno is sketching the flitting moths. Aiba sits next to him with Jun’s copy of this week’s _Shounen Jump!_ balanced precariously on his knees, their legs touch through thin pyjama pants. On Ohno’s other side, he’s spread out his pencils, some good crayons that he bought last week to experiment with. Beyond their still, concentrating figures, the world is all neon lights through the darkness, the passing-bys of cars and conversations. Nino imagines the bar across the road must be winding down too, Hamada cleaning out his glasses with practised finesse, and Shigeoka leaning his hip against the kitchen sink as he scrubs flour from under his fingernails.

Aiba murmurs to Ohno, and Nino can’t make out what he’s saying. But then, he reads out from the page, chuckles, and says it again so Ohno's face dissolves into mirth. His body leans towards Aiba, his nose scrunching up. After their chuckles peter out, trailing off, Aiba leans over to look. His chin rests on Ohno's shoulder as he lets out a long breath and his body turns soft, pliant.

Nino can't take his eyes away. In his hands, his game is still running, still singing, his avatar leaps into molten lava, but here, the world's compressed itself into a paper ball, this small muted moment, pouring orange light onto all the shadows of Aiba and Ohno's faces, into the way their arms bend to meet paper and how their bodies look like holding each other.

If Nino were the sort of person or had the words, he'd say _I love you._ But he's not and he doesn't, so he just keeps watching, listening to Ohno's pencil working at paper, and Aiba when he turns the page to find something else funny.

For as long as Nino watches, they remain like this, bodies propped up against each other, easy and habitual.

 

**xi.**

In the morning, Nino wakes up bathed in the first rays of sunlight through the veranda doors and his phone buzzing madly under his pillow with texts from Jun.

He’s suddenly conscious, tipped into sharp reality. Downstairs, Jun's hissing _Nino, Ninoooooooooo, fuck, where are you_ through the back door, knocking as quietly _and_ impatiently as only Jun can on the window. He's going to burn the house down if Nino doesn't get the door open soon, so he shoves his feet into his slippers and skips steps.

" _Finally_ ," Jun heaves, far more dramatically than the situation warrants. "I was about to knock on Maru's door to ask if I could climb over from his place."

Nino turns, sniggers helplessly. The sliver of light on the corridor narrows and disappears to the sound of Jun turning the lock. "You're not nearly Aiba-chan enough for that."[11](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/3274.html#cutid1)

"Yeah, no I'm not," Jun pokes Nino's butt as they head up the stairs. Nino is tempted to hit him in the face with it. "Imagine if Sho-kun tried though, I think he'd get stuck somewhere then Maru will call us going ' _Sakurai-san is stuck! I don't know what to do!_ '"

"With Sho-chan's voice in the background yelling for help."

Aiba stirs when they reach the top. He makes eye contact with Nino, then he's crawling groggily into the space that Nino'd left behind, throwing his arm over Ohno's back and going back to sleep.

"His moment of glory," Jun agrees, then sobers. He goes into the kitchen, takes his bottle of disgustingly green _aojiru_ out from the fridge. It's nearly toxic with healthiness. "About Sho-kun - "

"Leader's going to talk to him," Nino hoists himself up on the kitchen counter, despite Jun's disapproving tuts. But then again, he's the one drinking that horrid concoction willingly so he's in no position to tell Nino off.

Jun nods, staring into the distance as he drinks from the bottle. His jacket is folded over the armrest of the couch, and his sleeves are rolled up. Sometimes, it still surprises Nino how much time has passed since Jun was wearing Aiba's old shirts and had a temper than could rival Sho's.

"Are you doing okay?" Nino swings a leg up to poke his hip with his toes.

"Yeah, I'm good." He's smiling bashfully, looking up at Nino from under his fringe. "You?"

"I'm alright, getting there," Nino supplies and hops off the counter to stand beside Jun, closer than is comfortable, but then then it makes Jun coil his arm around Nino's smaller frame, his hand curling around his shoulder. This is perfect.[12](http://tensaitamago.livejournal.com/3479.html#cutid1)

They stay like this for a while. Listen to Ohno snore, and the fridge humming in its corner, and Koenji gradually waking up, shaking sleep from its eyes. A bicycle bell's ring drifts through the open kitchen window. In a while, Sho will be back, knocking on the backdoor and falling asleep standing up, and Nino will try his damnest not to fuss. But he'll allow himself to nudge a mug of tea into Sho's work-clumsy hands and usher him towards Aiba's empty futon.

"It's been a long few weeks," Jun murmurs, almost to himself.

Nino hums in acknowledgement. "I wonder what kind of person she'll grow to be."

"Hopefully someone who doesn't forget her keys, and decides climbing home through her neighbours' house is _clearly_ the wisest decision." Jun shakes his head, and turns to rinse out his empty bottle.

"Can you believe that Aiba Masaki is an actual human being that exists?" Nino watches Aiba's tentacle arms tighten their grip around Ohno's torso. The thing about Ohno is that when he sleeps, he's just completely dead to the world. This is also why morning wake-up sex has never worked where he is concerned.

"At this point, if you told me he was a Johnny's idol in another life, I'd believe you."

 

**xii.**

It should not come as a surprise, but Aiba wants to go with Kitagawa to see Yamashita. He tells Nino this right in the middle of a conversation, after the shop is closed and they're sitting on stools on the roof.

“Aiba-chan, we’ll all go if you want to.” Nino says gently. He doesn’t want to be the one to do this, but their lives have been intertwined for the longest, as far back as he can remember and maybe this is what they were building up to. All the times Aiba had lifted his eyes to the sky and hoped for his parents’ silhouettes in the doorway, and every time Nino had stayed silent. “But you know he’s just a man right? He’s not your parents or grandparents, and this is not a point in one of those movies where the orphans face down with the irresponsible father and they teach him the importance of life or- or, whatever the fuck it is he has to learn.” Nino stops to catch his breath, resentment sparking, then as gently as he can, "you don't have to teach him anything."

Aiba’s quiet, so still that Nino wants to reach and put his hands on his chest to feel the familiar, measured rise and fall and his surely rabbiting pulse. Nino feels his own thudding in his throat, about to tear its way out of his ribs and leap into the bustling traffic out on the street.

“They’re gone, Aiba-chan. If they wanted to come back, they would have the moment they left.” He finally reaches out, finally places his hand feather light on Aiba’s knees.

Aiba lets out a shuddering exhale. Next door, Maru is singing along to AKB48, slightly off-pitch. It’s too loud, but not nearly loud enough.

“But he needs to know. When he hears me out, he'll understand,” Aiba chokes out, raw, like the world has dropped out from beneath his feet. It gives Nino goose bumps. He's so tired, exhausted from the fingers of his past snipping at his heels. If only the universe could go back to normal, or even to yesterday night when Ohno fell asleep on his drawings, and he and Aiba had to coax him the two steps into their futons, or maybe this morning when Ohno woke up with a cheekful of pencil stains.

“What happens if he doesn't want to? What then, what if he looks you in the eyes and says ‘so what?’” Nino murmurs, and it’s inevitable now. He thinks about how the texture of tofu makes his stomach turn; how Jun always sleeps with the lights on, and Ohno flinches whenever someone raises a hand. Sho took years to relearn how to make eye contact during conversations. Adrenaline is running riot in his veins. “Aiba-chan. we’re -- I don’t want us to be victims. I'm tired of it.”

Then Aiba chokes out a warble of a sob, and folds into his knees as if someone just sucker-punched him in the stomach. He's always cried quietly. Too many times, Nino had found him tucked into small corners of the orphanage, so still it looked like he was napping if not for his shaking shoulders. Then one day, he'd stopped, or maybe Nino stopped finding him.

Nino sits on his haunches in front of Aiba’s knees, bites his lip, and rests his chin on Aiba's knee. Immediately, Aiba lunges down towards him, shuffling near, pushing his gangly arms and wet cheeks into Nino’s space. Nino rebalances them, rests his free hand on the back of Aiba's neck.

“Aiba-chan,” Nino barely gets out before Aiba's pushed his face into the slope of Nino's neck and Nino's skin is warm with the vapour of his exhales. “Masaki,” he murmurs, and it feels foreign on his tongue, strangely unfitting. It's been years since Aiba's been anything but _Aiba-kun, Aiba-chan,_ or even _Aiba-shi_ after all. They left their first names in the orphanage, in the days when he couldn't say _Masaki_ nearly enough to convey _please stop asking me to give up my lunch for another experiment with cucumbers_ and _you're a complete idiot, but you're all I have_ in kind.

Nino holds him until his calves start to hurt and he has to sit instead. Aiba follows, unspeaking. It feels like the world has remade itself several times over, squeezed them dry and hung them out. His lungs are full of the faded dregs of Aiba’s aftershave, his sweat and Ohno's cigerettes, the scent of blooming hydrangeas in August, while his fingers make fists in the worn linen of Aiba's florist smock that he forgot to take off.

When it starts getting chilly, Nino says into Aiba's shoulder. "We should probably go downstairs. Oh-chan's going to burn dinner if we don't help."

Aiba pulls away, wiping his nose on the back of his hand and half-giggling, half-croaking, goes, "Aah, I left snot all over your shirt. And probably some drool."

Nino sighs, shoving Aiba's lightly. "Ugh, you're the _worst,_ Matsujun is going to _kill_ me." He waits for Aiba to quiet down again, eyes drifting into the distance over Nino's head.

"It's been so long already huh," He muses, wonderingly. This time Nino is the one leaning in, tucking his head under Aiba's chin and listening to his hiccupping breaths in the tremours of his throat. The world turns to dusk around them.

"Mmm, I guess you're stuck with us for good." Nino grins, lifting his head to kiss Aiba once, breathlessly. He tucks his cold fingertips under Aiba's shirt, feels his belly shiver in surprise. He'll be all right.

" _Unfortunately_ ," Aiba adds, getting to his feet and ducking away before Nino can swat at him. "I'll race you down! Last one down is doing washing up!"

 

**xiii.**

Tuesday morning.

Yamashita arrives at AKAN Love in a blacked-out Mercedes, that runs over the curb a little and has to fix its parking.

From their veranda, Jun barks out surprised laughter. "Clearly they should hire Sho-kun to drive instead."

Inside, Sho is tearing away at sheets of _nori_ with the ferocity of himself on zero cups of coffee, except he's had five and his hands are already getting jittery. Hina already banned him for the day, saying it's probably dangerous for a nurse to have shaky hands, reaching a point where all he was doing was sprouting this morning's news at everyone he saw. Shii-chan occasionally wanders over for some _nori,_ and Sho's taken to absently passing her broken corners, then she's crawling back to Aiba who is trying to build a palace out of giant blocks. It's slightly lacking in some places. At the moment, he's calling them windows but they look more like holes to Nino.

Ohno's on shop duty now. Nino hears the doorbell ding brightly when someone enters and the smile in Ohno's voice when he says _hello!_

Over the weekend, they'd laid out the plan to the kids at AKAN Love, introduced Kitagawa and Shii-chan, who took an instant liking to Hamada. She had then proceeded to tell him a story in gibberish whilst pointing insistently at the bananas on his shirt. Around the bar counter, Jun caught them up the events so far so they could understand the sheer gravity of the meeting, the consequences of it going south and Ryusei had a frown so deep it could have been a tributary system. Then they had documented it together; all of Jun's plans for in case _anything_ goes wrong, possible scenarios and escape routes, walked through everything thrice. Kotaki unrolled his blueprints and found that they were taller than even him. Sho gave everyone a copy of their phone numbers, and handing Junta a handgun that he first disassembled and reassembled - _twice_. Made Junta do it twice too, so Sho knew for sure that he was confident, not just nodding and smiling politely. Technically they were not even obliged to help, but Jun brought over his famous chicken bake, and promised them a home-cooked three-course meal and they were all sold.

Now Jun watches as Kitagawa shakes Yamashita's hand, keeping her distance while his hoard of bodyguards position themselves around them. From the roof, Kotaki flashes them a grin and an okay sign, and Jun replies him through text _._

Nino heads downstairs to join Ohno, pulling on Aiba's smock on over the jumper he's wearing. It's Ohno's, but he hadn't noticed in the dark this morning. Now he's warm and cosy, and definitely not taking it off.

"Oh, did Akito-kun come by this morning?" is the first thing Nino says when he sees Ohno slouching behind the counter, eating garlic bread. The entire shop already smells like flowers and garlic. Ohno hums around a mouthful of bread, and offers him some. A cloud of steam billows out of the bun when Nino tears it open. It's sweet and salty with the thick, heady scent of roasted garlic cloves, then a buttery rich that spreads throughout Nino's mouth.

"This is _amazing,_ " Nino says, then dusts his hands quickly when a customer enters and Aiba's stomping down the stairs saying, "I'll take over, Leader, you're needed upstairs." Then he sniffs the air. "Why does everything smell like garlic - oh! Hello, how can I help you?"

From this angle, Nino can see them clearly, beyond the passing cars and pedestrians taking their time on the pavement. It's past morning rush hour, and a grandma is waiting for her dog to finish sniffing a patch of grass on the side of the road. Aiba would know its breed.

Yamashita's on the phone, and Kitagawa is watching him carefully from across their table. Kamiyama seems to have gone all out on appearances today, a maroon tablecloth and irises in a vase on the table. Nino's only slightly impressed; it's not like this guy deserves a nice tablecloth anyway. They would have met in a dumpster if it meant that all five of them could get a good angle on the meeting.

When the customer leaves, Aiba busies himself with sweeping up fallen petals on the floor. His dustpan knocks against the legs of the displays as he moves. "Yamashita-san called Sho-chan asking for our leader. It was kind of like those like, alien encounter movies, only weirder, I guess -"

Nino frowns, but Aiba keeps going, his words like one long fused-together thread of thought.

"- we have dirt on him. I saw the amount of stuff Kitagawa-san wrote, her handwriting was so tiny and there was _a lot_ of it. She connected him to the _yakuza_ and Ueno-san, and then connected Ueno-san to a heck load of really shady business. I don't think he would want that getting out, we'll be fine." Aiba leans the broom and dustpan back behind the counter, getting Nino to budge over slightly so he could pick up his spray bottle from behind the counter. He starts spraying water on the potted herbs, moving with a single minded determination.

"Mmm." Nino answers. He's getting restless now, his leg shaking where it rests on the rung of his tall chair. Across the road, he can see Akito showing Yamashita out of the door, and he's standing up, moving, patting Aiba's back frantically. "He's leaving, he's leaving."

Suddenly everyone's coming downstairs, and Aiba's turning the sign on the door to CLOSED.

"He's leaving, he's leaving," Aiba tells them, waving his hand wildly for some reason. "What did you say, Leader?" His eyes are wide, and he's breathless with the exhilaration.

"I told we have no outside interests, we don't want anything to do with him, we aren't going to release anything if he leaves Kitagawa-san alone, and that Shii-chan is staying with Kitagawa-san and he can fuck right off," Ohno finishes in a single breath, the remnants of a fight still in his jawline, but he's grinning and reaching for Nino's hand.

Sho, carrying Shii-chan, gets hit in the nose when she waves her hands too, imitating Aiba. "Hold on, hold on, Shii-chan, you're all _bara-bara_ huh."

Ten minutes later, Kitagawa crosses the road, looking left, right before taking long strides. In the bright sunlight, her eyebags are even more obvious but still, she carries herself with that unwavering certainty.

"How was it?" Jun says as soon as she gets in the door. She smiles thinly, exhausted, and gives him two thumb-ups.

"YAY! KITAGAWA-SAN, YAY!" Aiba crows, throwing his hands into the air. He thrusts his palm out for a high five, and Kitagawa meets it. He's smiling so hard he looks ridiculous, and Nino's heart feels like it could burst.

"Yay!" She replies, laughing, disbelief on her face.

"Yay Shii-chan!" Aiba holds his hand out to Shii-chan too. In reply, she exclaims "YA!" loudly before bopping Aiba on his head with her tiny fist. Nino finds himself choking out laughter; she's been picking up some questionable habits over the past few weeks, most of them from Jun.

"We're all going out for yakiniku!" Sho announces, and suddenly everyone's talking at once. Jun's on the phone with Junta going _are you free right now? Yes, right now. We're going out for yakiniku!_ and Ohno and Aiba keep trying to high-five each other and Nino with increasingly enthusiastic cries of _YAAAAAAAAAY!_ Kitagawa watches them, and the way Sho swings Shii-chan around so she squeals and clings to his neck, then she's wrapping her arms around herself and beaming too.

"Thank you," Kitagawa says again later, when she's at the backdoor with Shii-chan strapped in a carrier on her shoulders and they've discussed future baby-sitting arrangements at length. "I know I've said it a lot, but I can't thank you enough for everything, all this."

"We did what we had to," Jun replies. "Just like you did." Under his breath, Sho mutters something about Jun being way too cool for the rest of them.

Together, they watch her retreating back. It makes Nino feel like he's 15, 16 and 17 again, and waving while Ohno, Sho and Aiba walked away, became smaller and smaller until their figures were swallowed up by distance. This time though, he's not bidding his time, waiting for some point in the future that he cannot see. This time, he's here, standing on the steps of this old house in Tokyo on this warm autumn with the rough sounds of the grinder drifting out from Maru's open backdoor, and a flower shop that smells like garlic. This time, they're all stuck in a tiny doorway, waving until Jun feels silly and Ohno declares he's hungry again.

Sho's eyes are glistening.

"Are you crying?"

"NO, the sun's just too strong okay!"

This time - it's _different_.

 

 

**Epilogue**

"Do you know what happened a few days ago?" Hina asks the next time Nino's over at the shop. "There was a blacked-out car and men in suits _everywhere_ around the bar, wonder what happened huh."

But Nino only shrugs nonchalantly, taking another bite of Yasu's freshly baked banana bread. "No idea. Hina, I can't believe you're still not used to seeing important people around, you've been in Tokyo for ten years!"

Once again, Maru decides to tell them about that one time he shook hands with that Shounentai member. You know _that one_ , the one with the hair?

*

Nino's taking out a guy with a terrible haircut when Aiba ducks into the doorway. He would really rather he not.

"N-kun, can I borrow your taser again? Sorry, I promise it's the last time," Aiba clasps his palms together and makes a pleading face. In Nino's arms, the guy grabs ahold of his elbow, meaning to topple him, but he lets go of his shoulders, shrugs out of the grip and delivers an uppercut. The guy's head whips around and he lands on the ground with a thud.

"I _told_ you to use my work name!" Nino complains exasperatedly. Aiba has the stupidest nickname in the whole world ('Birdman') but they all still use it; 'Game' is not even that hard to pronounce. "Behind you -"

Aiba punches, _then_ looks. It only got the man in his chest, off-centre from his heart. The man recoils, pulls the safety off his gun but Aiba kicks him behind his knee and grabs his wrist, jerking his arm backwards so there's a cracking sound and the gun clatters to the ground. The man screams. Aiba hits his cheek, ducking when he swings with his other arm. Then, he steadies his footing, and drags the guy upwards by his shirt, throws two punches so hard that he slumps on the ground, unconscious.

"Sorry, sorry, ah, it's okay, I'm going to use this gun then. Bye!" Aiba dashes off again, far too noisy for someone who is supposed to be a vigilante.

"You're the WORST." Nino shouts after him, and it draws the attention of another two guards, who surround Nino, bracing for a fight.

"Yup, I LOVE YOU TOO!" Nino hears, just before he whips around, tasing one of the men and kicking the other in his balls.

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [lysanderpuck](http://lysanderpuck.livejournal.com/) during this year's [ninoexchange](http://ninoexchange.livejournal.com/).


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